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Talk:Magic
There we go! This is exaclty the sort of thing we need to differentiate. Anvildude 22:54, April 2, 2010 (UTC) Usefull Stuff As to what form of magic is the most reliable... Literally that answer is personal to every mage, and some forms just "click" better with some than others. Fey does a direct tap but she's so closely tied to nature that she's not as dangerous in artificial environs. The more closely a mage taps the sources of magic directly, the more likely the effect is to be powerful, and uncontrollable once unleashed. Using Fey as an example... Were she to fire a raw blast of energy about all one can do is get out of the way and pray one's defenses hold. Not even she can redirect the bastard once it goes off. Further, the magic Law that says the spell does not end until ALL the repercussions and ripples have completed... The bigger the bang, the more consequences and ripples, regardless of whether the mage sees those things. Various types of magick (by far not a comprehensive list) Hermetic Schools: Hedging on the formulaic methods of classic wizards to bring the mind and will into focus, the Hermetics take a very mathemagical slant on the mystic arts. While this provides a lot of power and control, the innovative and random spark is missing as your average hermetic requires months, perhaps even years of study to learn new tricks. "Natural" mages: Nature-tied mages tend to carry the primal forces of nature in their blood, and tend towards wild, half-formed bursts of power that do not ALWAYS do as the mage wishes. Their strong points are elemental, and fertility magic, while their weak points fall into the realm of summoning, divination and communication. Necromancers: Tied to death and the dead, necromancy is not evil in and of itself, though it cvertainly lends itself well to horrific ends. Raising the dead, trapping souls and ripping the very life-force from their victims, Necromancers who aren't "evil" tend to be very pragmatic. After all, only a psycho would relish the thought of tearing out an enemy's heart and eating it to partake of their strength (by western standards anyway). "physical" mages: Channeling things like Ki force or raw emotion into action, one of the most personally dangerous magicks is the magic of the self, pushing yourself into every action and slamming it into one's enemies. Push yourself too far and you will not have enough energy remaining to keep your heart beating. But for the Ki master who can balance the power output are absolutely DEVASTATING in a melee. Mutants who develop a Ki wiz trait tend to die as their bodies lack an internal gauge that keeps them from punching out too much. "Chaos" mages: Mages who literally tap the raw energy and shape it as they will with whatever is on-hand fall into this category, the mystic "catch-all" label. magicks created by raw will and direct feeds are among the most potent and unpredictable magicks any practitioner could ever see. Most mutants with a wiz 4 or higher rating fall into this category, as does the Artificer. Chaos working often seem to violate the Laws of Magic to anyone who is not skilled in the arts but a practiced eye can usually follow the chain back and see where the rules are bent, but do not break. This is also the catch-all category for normal mages who do things in a way mages would sneer or scoff at, like the military man who focuses his will through running cadences, or the police officer who channels her power via the authority of the badge. "Fae" Mages: Storm-witches and Fatebinders fall into this category of dangerous magicks that alternately tap the ambient magics, natural phenomena or fate seemingly at random. As wild and capricious as the creatures that pioneered this form of magick, tapping this form requires a mental and physical discipline that most mortal creatures cannot muster. Even powerful wiz-Mutants find tapping this source of magick to be rather akin to licking a live power cable, and avoid it where possible. "GOO" Magicks: Arguably among the most violently powerful and horrific forms, tapping the Great old Ones for power leads very rapidly to horriflyingly great levels of power. however, the downside is a complete and utter loss of sanity, and often one's Soul, as the human, and mutant mind were not meant to contain the thoughts or realities of the Elder Things. Channelers: Often considered a sub-class of mage, a topic argued VERY hotly, channelers tap not the natural world, Ley Lines, Currents or rituals for their power. Instead they must bargain, cajole, steal and focus power directly from spirits. Mutants often flat-out violate the classic rules guiding "normal" wizards, which leads many to believe that a channeler is very likely to be something else entirely, and that Shamanistics around the world are being done a disservice by classifying and teaching them as though their pacts and bargains with the creatures of the Astral Planes were nothing more than another way of casting classical spells. Source That's the sort of information that should go into the yet to be written magic main article. Also e. g. http://crystalhall.org/chboards3/index.php?t=msg&&th=2434&goto=70525#msg_70525 Addiab 09:48, April 3, 2010 (UTC) IP1: Stunned, Sara closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts. “Divination is the ability to tell the future or to find a person or object using items that resonate with the subject or by manipulating energies connected with the subject. Divination is different from Precognition because of its reliance on these energies. Divining Rods are a good example of this, not just any forked stick will work, the rod must be specially prepared to find water and a mystically sensitive individual is required to use it successfully.”Addiab 12:22, April 18, 2010 (UTC) Magic schools If I'm remebering right, one of the Phase stories mentioned a magic school, 'though I cant remember which for the life of me. Also there some info in this thread. --Glimmervoid 13:10, April 3, 2010 (UTC) Found it. Bonewitz Center for Magical Studies Five Elements Dancing - Book of the Earth --Glimmervoid 16:59, April 13, 2010 (UTC) Types of Magic subsection Xalt, where does the information in your edit come from? Particularly the second paragraph. Is this from a forum discussion or something, or based on your own reasoning, how these things are treated elsewhere (real world ideas about magic?) or something else? If you have a canon source that might be extremely valuable for the types of magic main article. Addiab 19:00, June 16, 2010 (UTC) It comes from the work on the Laws of Magic article, in particular the Law of Precedent. The only comments that really apply to the Types of Magic article would be Traditional Western Magic, which includes the Kaballah (however you want to spell it), Enochian magic (which popped up once) and similar stuff. Traditional Western Magic is quite different from, for example, Taoist magic, with which I have a slight familiarity.XaltatunOfAcheron 20:32, June 16, 2010 (UTC) I mean for instance, how do you know that there are "fundamental practices that work across all, or almost all, of the different areas", and that "these practices include evocation, summoning, illusions or seemings, transmutations and elemental effects". Is this just your reasoning? We usually use the appropriate weasel words (appears, seems, presumably etc.) for that kind of stuff. I know the importance of the Kaballah is mentioned in Angel in father Johns Basement, but I don't know where Enochian magic is supposed to be mentioned? I would also say that this is an area where applying real world knowledge is particularly dangerous, because unlike their Whateley couterparts all real world traditions of magic are defined by the fact that they don't work, at all (in so far as they are magic, some non-magical knowledge (folk medicine etc) that is part of those traditions may work), so excuses why they don't work form a major part of them. It's quite remarkable that the Whateley traditions are even as similar as they are known to be based on revealed details, assuming that they are the same unless stated otherwise seems inappropriate to me. Addiab 21:00, June 16, 2010 (UTC) Over the years I've gotten enough training in several magical traditions to know what they're about. The statements I've made are pretty general knowledge. It doesn't take very much reading between the lines to know that at least two of the members of the authors' group are probably much more knowledgeable than I am. Shrug. Enochian magic was mentioned in Silver Linings, part 2. A straight-forward grep on the word "Enochian" will find it, as will just about every text search program I've heard of. Having practiced astrology for over a third of a century, I've had lots of experience in seeing people who have never bothered to learn anything about the subject make definite pronouncements that various things don't work. This isn't science. It's ideology.XaltatunOfAcheron 23:09, June 16, 2010 (UTC) Astrology? Seriously? Well, I assume you don't seriously believe that all magical beliefs are true, that all magical practices work, or even a major fraction (otherwise someone examining a random practice should have a good chance of happening upon one that works), so "does not work at all, excuses why they don't work form a major part" would still be true for most magical beliefs. In a magical (or much more strongly magical) universe it should be much more easy to sort out the truly bogus ideas. As e. g. for Astrology, I assume that you are not a billionaire through trading the stock market after making horoscopes for various CEOs. Nor is anyone else. If you really believe in astrology I assume you have a perfectly good explanation why that is so that fits in with all your other beliefs and would see the question as a straw man if used in an argument against astrology, since no one ever claimed that you could do that. And I'm not making that argument. But, in the Whateley Universe it could be possible, though probably very difficult, to do just that and become a billionaire. So something in whatever the explanation is for why you can't do that here is different there. Hence the assumption that astrology is the same unless otherwise noted is dangerous. Possibly for this specific example the explanation is such that this reasoning doesn't apply (e. g. there actually are some billionaires through astrology or something), just swap out astrology and the stock market out for other things a naive outsider might believe that sort of magic should be able to do, proponents have a good explanation for why it can't, and it actually can in the Whateley universe. In any such case the Whateley version is different enough for the real world explanation to be wrong. And just because the authors adopted some real world magical beliefs doesn't mean they have to adopt all. That would be the same as concluding that just because some mythical Gods exist all have to and start randomly inserting information about Odin, Vishnu and Quetzalcoatl in articles everywhere. Or mass dump unconfirmed info from Journey to the West into the Monkey King article. Only worse because we already know there have to be some differences. Addiab 01:04, June 17, 2010 (UTC) Actually, the straw man argument is for someone who knows nothing about the subject to assert that such and such are what it claims to be able to do, then observe that it can't do it, and then claim that it doesn't work. Your statement about astrology demonstrates that you don't know enough about astrology to talk sensibly about it, nor do you know my life goals well enough to make your claim a reasonable proposition of what I would do if it was possible. In other words, that's the kind of complete and utter bullshit I expect from a smug ideolog. You're better than that. Knock it off, please. Your point that the Whatelyverse magical system doesn't have to reflect existing real world magical systems is quite valid, however that does appear to be the general intention. I can contrast that with a number of fantasy magical systems that seem to have been patched together. For example, there's a series of books by, I think, Modesett, where the spells have to be sung, and where a single mage can sing a huge bridge into existence. Neither the method nor the effect size corresponds to any existing real world magical system I'm aware of. The caveat here is that the Whateleyverse magical system seems to correspond more to popular claims of what magic can do, rather than what actual practitioners can accomplish, which is several orders of magnitude less. However, the big difference seems to be effect size, not methodology. It's a comic book universe, but the magical system does appear to be fairly well grounded in actual practice -- a lot better than the "mutant superpowers!"XaltatunOfAcheron 01:35, June 17, 2010 (UTC) "Actually, the straw man argument is for someone who knows nothing about the subject to assert that such and such are what it claims to be able to do, then observe that it can't do it, and then claim that it doesn't work." Yes, and I explicitly said exactly the same thing. I explicitly said that I'm not making that argument. I wasn't attacking astrology at all. (While I do believe Astrology to be nonsense, just like all other religions, magical beliefs and other superstitions arguing about it here would be completely pointless.) In fact my real argument wouldn't work at all if that wasn't a straw man. My real argument is essentially this: "This kind argument would be a straw man vs. such and such real world beliefs. In the Whateley Universe the straw man might be real. If the straw man is real the real world version of the belief for which it is a straw man can't be true." If your system doesn't predict A then occurrence of A proves your system to be at best incomplete. "It's a comic book universe, but the magical system does appear to be fairly well grounded in actual practice -- a lot better than the "mutant superpowers!" I'm not sure that's the case, actually. Many of the powers are based on psychic abilities, and much of that, including the testing of it, is based on Parapsychology stuff and such (in as far as I can recognize it, I don't waste much time on either). That's not the standard for including the sort of things you do in like that, anyway. No one wrote a section in the telekinesis article based on some parapsychology journal without noting it, and if someone did I would disagree at least as much. Addiab 02:33, June 17, 2010 (UTC) Straw man argument. If you weren't making that argument, then you were indulging in what I call a "verbal bullying" pattern. It's a quite common pattern that's a deliberate setup so that when someone calls you on it, you can duck and run by saying "but I didn't make that argument." The best way to not make an argument is to not say it in the first place. After all, a closed mouth gathers no feet. It really doesn't matter. Your claim seems to be that, since you know nothing about the subject, your completely unsupported preferences should override the statements of someone who does know something about the subject. Remove it if you want. I frankly don't give a damn about arguing further with an ideolog who seems to think, studying something that they think is nonsense, demonstrates some kind of belief in it.XaltatunOfAcheron 14:59, June 17, 2010 (UTC) READ WHAT I ACTUALLY WROTE!!!! Right now you are making a staw man argument, because you are so sensitive about this topic that you automatically react to what you think you are hearing, rather what I'm actually saying. Addiab 15:09, June 17, 2010 (UTC)